It’s been far too long. Here’s a quick wrap-up of my whirlwind two days in Washington, DC and the triumphant return of Juan Pedro.

Yes, the NRSC did something useful. I love being surprised.

It’s election crunch time, which means it’s video posting time. Here’s the latest from the Fiorina camp highlighting the demise of my home state under the tenure of Barbara Boxer:

It’s fun to get a glimpse of yourself through the eyes of others. I mean, as long as it’s not because of some creepy, Minority Report transplant thing. Here are a couple of things that were tweeted to me by Kruiser Control fans last week. I think what we’ve learned here is that I provide an invaluable service that distracts people from work.

The first pic is from @rdlenix, who was overcome by the urge to doodle while watching last week’s installment. The weird thing is, this looks exactly like my second grade class photo.

Also, but Bush.

The second picture was inspired by my comment that America was about to become “unblued” after the upcoming election. I had the privilege to be Photoshopped by @californiumblog into a Bob Ross (who hosted the greatest show EVER on PBS-The Joy Of Painting) picture that may become my election day backdrop somewhere.

I'm not huffing anything & I'm not done yet.

As always, I’m happy that ANYONE is paying attention and I thank these two stellar tweeps/fans for sharing in the madness.

Deck chairs on the Titanic.

What state ranks third in unemployment, second in foreclosures, has the nation’s worst credit rating, is running a $19 billion deficit – yet insists on spending billions on a greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan that can’t possibly impact global warming?

Yes, it’s California, land of the Governator, who signed a bill that may say “Hasta la vista, baby!” to perhaps a million jobs. Yet there’s hope the prosperity terminator can be stopped.

The state boasts that the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, better known as AB 32, is “first-in-the-world.” It requires that by 2020 the state’s greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 1990 levels, about 25-30 percent less than they’d otherwise be. It demands another 80 percent reduction by 2050. This even as the state’s population is projected to grow from 34 million to 59 million by then. Minor implementations have already begun and the law fully kicks in during January 2012.

The Golden State has prided itself for decades as a national leader in business and economic trends. Lately the focus seems to be on showing the rest of the United States the quickest path to financial ruin. Already poised at the edge of the cliff as far as jobs go, California is about to let AB32 push it over and finish the job.

As I pointed out in a previous post, the green jobs story spun by environmentalists and progressives has been nothing more than a leftist fairy tale to this point. The sales pitch for the artificially propped-up “industry” has become so sour that its most prominent champion-President Obama-has stopped trying to make it.

Noticeably absent from President Obama’s latest economic-stimulus package are any further attempts to create jobs through “green” energy projects, reflecting a year in which the administration’s original, loudly trumpeted efforts proved largely unfruitful.

The long delays typical with environmentally friendly projects – combined with reports of green stimulus funds being used to create jobs in China and other countries, rather than in the U.S. – appear to have killed the administration’s appetite for pushing green projects as an economic cure.

The plan to shackle and financially strangle profitable, proven energy sources and replace them with a renewable energy industry that has no real-world success stories (large scale) is losing steam on both ends of the political spectrum now.

Even some of the administration’s liberal allies have expressed skepticism over the original stimulus package’s use of green investments as a way to spur quick employment growth at home.

“Spending on renewables is slow to get out of the door. Leaks to foreign companies is an inadequate driver of jobs and growth and may not create a strong exporting industry,” said Samuel Sherraden, an economic analyst at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based progressive think tank.

AB32 was passed and signed into law at a time when California was still one of the largest economies in the world and had an unemployment rate almost eight points lower than it is now. There was money available to subsidize technologies that had yet proven themselves profit-makers on their own. Now the government here gives IOUs instead of state income tax refunds.

After decades of hyper-regulation poisoning the business climate in California, lawmakers here are still prepared to add more and do little more than cross their fingers, waiting for an almost fantastical outcome.

Originally the California Air Resources Board (CARB) forecast that by 2020 the law would expand economic production by $33 billion annually, increase overall personal income by $16 billion and per capita income by $200, while adding more than 100,000 jobs. But when that failed the laugh test, CARB rejiggered the numbers.

A new CARB report in March forecast continued economic growth for California, while also concluding that AB 32 would barely slow it. Indeed, under CARB’s best-case scenario, the law would actually add 10,000 jobs. Ah, but the study had four other scenarios. All of them indicate job losses – as high as 320,000.

The once-proud economic engine in California doesn’t have any wiggle room to absorb (as President Obama would say) the damage even more misguided energy regulation would cause. AB32 needs to, at the very least, be suspended until the state can provide some measure of solvency and return its citizens to work.

I know, I know, it’s been far too long.

The first clip show your Big Auto bailout money at work. Workers at a Chrysler plant in the seventh ring of hell Detroit are seen drinking and smoking some sort of medicinal herb while on the job. Hey, all just fun and games unless they’re doing something important, like building a vehicle you’ll be driving your kids around in, right?

And, yes, there’s a Chris Christie clip. His endorsement of Mike Castle in Delaware a few weeks ago indicated that the training wheels aren’t quite ready to come off and we’ve had to move him out of “Rock Star” status. Still, he says some good stuff. This isn’t the heckler clip that most of you have probably seen, it’s a brief part of a speech where he’s speaking about difficult political choices. His words are all the more relevant since he’s speaking here in California.

BONUS BONUS:

Here’s the full Charlie Crist video I promised on the show.

And here is the disturbing video from the Kitzhaber for Governor event in Oregon. A supporter of Republican Chris Dudley is trying to film the public campaign appearance and is assaulted. That’s how the peaceful, far-lefties roll up in that bluest of states.

Seconds on the crap sandwich, please…

The “Pledge To Recapture 1994 & Prove The Tea Partiers Aren’t The Only Ones With Ideas” is still being debated by sincere, committed conservatives this morning. Frankly, I am deeply concerned for many of my friends who are obviously suffering from severe memory loss.

I have been asked countless times since yesterday afternoon what I would rather see. That’s easy:

A pledge from John Boehner to relinquish any leadership role if the GOP regains the House in November.

Trust me, any giddiness conservatives may feel in November will quickly be gone by late January when they realize that a jellyfish is running point for them as Speaker of the House.

Michelle Malkin has a little memory jogger here, complete with a link to the roll-call vote for the first (pre-Obama) bail out vote. John Boehner and Eric Cantor, the two most recognizable faces during yesterday’s made-for-TV distraction, were among the yes votes.

So I won’t even beg indulgence for my overload of skepticism, I’ll just send along best wishes for a speedy recovery to any conservative suffering from the aforementioned memory loss.

The content of the stunt pledge is fairly harmless. It’s also ridiculously obvious. There are a lot of no-brainer ideas in there that, after the past twenty months, we should be able to assume GOP leadership is focused on. This reminds me of a defensive end whose team is behind 36-3 and does a victory dance because he just sacked the QB. It’s what you’re supposed to do, idiot, so shut it.

The real problem is this: the reason that this pledge is even necessary is because many of the people behind it were so awful at their jobs the last time the GOP had any kind of a majority.

Put simply, if John Boehner and his ilk hadn’t behaved like moderate Democrats when they were in the majority during the Bush years the Democrats wouldn’t have gotten a hammer lock on Congress and been able to ram all the onerous legislation down our throats. Sure, they probably would have gained seats in 2008 but it wouldn’t have been a bloodbath. Boehner and Cantor were both helping to navigate the GOP Titanic that hit the Obama iceberg in 2008. I’m not at all interested in turning a newer, faster ship over to them as soon as it leaves the harbor.

The legislation that the pledge promises to fight and/or repeal came into being because Republicans spent like drunken Kennedys during the Bush years. They abandoned the fiscal conservatism that is always the key to countering superior Democratic registration numbers. To put these same people back in charge would be a living illustration of Einstein’s definition of insanity.

I remember the press conference deflections that happened during the last GOP majority. Absent any original ideas or leadership, they would concoct a shiny distraction for the cameras. Yesterday’s grand unveiling of the pledge brought back a flood of “Oh no-not again!” for me.

We aren’t the Left. We don’t have the luxury of always blaming someone else. It is imperative that conservatives not squander the hard-earned gains of the last year by rewarding the people who have already stabbed us in the back with a free pass. Hoping that John Boehner and company have had an epiphany is, at best, deliriously wishful thinking.

While many of my friends will continue to see this pledge as a good start, I will continue to view it in a more useful way: as a painful reminder.

Renew your intense dislike of the thoroughly disgusting Barbara Boxer once more. Carly Fiorina begins a statewide ad campaign aimed at removing one of the more historically useless members of the United States Senate. Immediately going after one of Boxer’s more egregious gaffes shows good instincts on the part of whomever is handling this stuff at team Fiorina.

From the Fiorina campaign:

It has only taken 30 years, but California voters have finally been afforded the complete and accurate picture of Barbara Boxer. In her own words, she demonstrates the arrogance that is the hallmark of a career that has gone on for far too long and will mercifully end on November 2. She’s invested much in furthering her career and liberal ideology but has delivered little for the people of California,” said Carly for California Campaign Manager Marty Wilson. “Boxer’s treatment of General Walsh is seared into the minds of Californians, and this is the beginning of our campaign’s fact-based approach to exposing the lowlights of Barbara Boxer’s career dedicated to raising taxes, increasing the size of government and promoting policies that strangle the private sector’s ability to create jobs. Carly provides the perfect contrast through her background in business and commitment to addressing our country’s challenges with bipartisan, common-sense solutions.

Here are some lowlights from Ma’am’s treatment of the military while she was working so hard for that title:

Since 1993, Boxer Has Voted At Least Seven Times To Freeze Or Cut Billions Of Dollars In Defense Funding; Feinstein Opposed Her On Five Of The Seven Cuts. (S. 1298, CQ vote #253: Motion Agreed To 61-32: R 35-5; D 26-27, 9/9/93, Boxer and Feinstein Voted Nay; S. Con. Res. 13, CQ Vote #181: Rejected 28-71: R 2-51; D 26-20; I 0-0, 5/24/95, Boxer Voted Yea and Feinstein Voted Nay; S. Con. Res. 13, CQ Vote #227: Rejected 12-87: R 1-53; D 11-34; I 0-0, 5/25/95, Boxer Voted Yea and Feinstein Voted Nay; S. Con. Res. 57, CQ Vote #113: Rejected 42-57: R 6-47; D 36-10; I 0-0, 5/15/96, Boxer Voted Yea and Feinstein Voted Nay; S. 1087, CQ Vote #389: Motion Agreed To 56-42: R 50-3; D 6-39, 8/10/95, Boxer and Feinstein Voted Nay; H.R. 3610, CQ Vote #200: Passed 72-27: R 50-3; D 22-24, 7/18/96, Boxer Voted Nay and Feinstein Voted Yea; S. 1061, CQ Vote #229: Motion rejected 27-72: R 2-53; D 25-19, 9/10/97, Boxer Voted Yea and Feinstein Voted Nay; H.R. 4576, CQ #126: Motion Agreed To 83-15: R 54-0; D 29-15; I 0-0, 6/13/00, Boxer Voted Nay and Feinstein Voted Yea)

In 2007, Boxer Was One Of Only 14 Senators To Vote Against Supplemental Funding, Including Money For Body Armor And Defense Health Programs, For The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan. (H.R. 2206, CQ Vote #181: Passed 80-14: R 42-3; D 37-10; I 1-1, 5/24/07, Boxer Voted Nay and Feinstein Voted Yea)

In 2003, Boxer Was One Of Just 12 Senators To Oppose The $87 Billion Supplemental Appropriation For The Reconstruction Of Iraq And Afghanistan; The Bill Included Funding For Body Armor And Communications Equipment For The Troops. (S. 1689, CQ Vote #400: Passed 87-12: R 50-0; D 37-11; I 0-1, 10/17/03, Boxer Voted Nay and Feinstein Voted Yea; “Highlights Of Iraq, Afghanistan Measures,” The Associated Press, 10/17/03)

Boxer Was One Of Only 25 Senators Who Voted Against Condemning A MoveOn.Org Ad That Questioned General David Petraeus’s Integrity; Feinstein Voted To Condemn The Ad. (HR 1585, CQ Vote #344: Passed 72-25: R 49-0; D 22-24; I 1-1, 9/20/07, Boxer Voted Nay and Feinstein Voted Yea)

Look away from the Delaware…

While many on the Right have been kicking the histrionics into overdrive over Christine O’Donnell’s win in the Delaware GOP primary, John Raese was quietly closing the gap that separated him from West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin.

In a conference call this morning, Raese outlined a focused closing strategy to win a race that, until yesterday, hadn’t been talked about much outside of his home state. The successful businessman is positioning himself as a clear “check and balance” to President Obama, specifically on the hot-button issue of cap and trade.

West Virginia is a big coal producing state that obviously would be hit hard by a federal cap and trade bill. It’s already suffering under its own version, known as the West Virgina Renewable Energy Act, which has the support of Gov. Manchin. Raese’s advertising strategy will devote a lot of resources tying Manchin to the bill and its detrimental effects on the state.

Raese says that he’s never been afraid of losing so he runs on sound ideology. The difference now, obviously, is that what wasn’t resonating a few years ago is now having a huge impact.

John Raese has a real shot at winning this seat now and a clear strategy to do it. He made the point that media buys in West Virginia aren’t as cost prohibitive as they are in other states and every donation goes a longer way during the home stretch.

This would be a perfect time for a lot of people to put their money where their Mike Castle excuses have been and help John Raese turn this seat red. You can donate to his campaign here.

One has to presume that the number one movie in every establishment GOPer’s Netflix queue these days is Reality Bites

Despite a unified effort from both the MSM and the Republican party hierarchy, Christine O’Donnell went all uppity on them and easily defeated Mike Castle, who we were told was the best candidate because he knew how to win elections.

If you’re a fan of convoluted arguments and political in-fighting, the past week has been a blast on the Right. When the reality that Mike Castle might not be so electable any more set those sold on his electability began rending garments, gnashing teeth and engaging in any other biblical histrionics you can think of. Why? Because Christine O’Donnell isn’t really electable, according to them. But they were worried because she was about to win an election. Get it?

Neither do they.

The fictional nature of the campfire scary story about O’Donnell ruining the GOP’s hopes for taking back the Senate is explored in the above-linked Big Journalism post.

However, if that really was every detractor’s motivating factor then it’s time to put on the big kid pants and get over it.

Family feuding on the Right isn’t anything new. It’s kind of our thing. The fighting gets in the way of progressing towards goals and undermines a lot of good work but it’s also inherent in a group that’s made up of fiercely devoted individuals. Let the Left have the groupthink crowd, it suits them better.

What’s different now, of course, is that the stakes are higher. Ben Domenech explains the folly of lusting after a slim Senate majority with a suspect moderate vote hanging in the balance. We’re still going to have the Maine duo to worry about every time there’s a crucial vote, why add to that misery?

I completely understand the sore feelings that many are experiencing today. I’ve put in a lot of time and effort for a few candidates this year (and many in the past) who didn’t make it through their primaries. Plenty of animosity for the opponents built up along the way, that’s the nature of a primary campaign. But I’ve been at this a looooong time and I know how to handle it. I piss and moan the night of the primary and make sure my mantra is STFU as soon as I wake up the next morning.

There are people I respect greatly who are still “acting out” in both mainstream and social media today. Again, if they are truly concerned about winning the Senate it’s time to refocus.

Karl Rove let his pride get the better of him and complained even more about O’Donnell on Fox News this morning. What Karl Rove needs to do is find a place so far up his ass to shove his pride that it doesn’t make another ill-advised television appearance between now and November.

This isn’t the time to give up and whine. After some predictably ignorant foot-stomping last night, the NRSC came around this morning, saying it would support O’Donnell. Mike Pence thinks she has a shot.

There is nothing so pathetic as watching conservatives behave like liberals. The people still whining today are living the victimhood dream (“There’s nothing we can do now! All is lost…woe is me…I’m melting…”) and doing more to undermine the effort to have a successful November than a hundred Christine O’Donnells could.

If you have any excess anger today all I’m saying is that I have some very useful suggestions as to where it can be redirected.